Red Door 29

MARIO Z. PUGLISI
MAPS TO FIGHT ANXIETY
034
Rafael Villegas has embarked on a
journey, an adventure, an expedition to
marvelous coasts, a literary challenge
that, in the end, has succeed perfectly,
with excellent weather and just in
time. From the inherited tradition of
countless prominent authors of dealing
with the circularity of time, and facing
what’s arcane and unknown with the
only help of their imagination and
some written words that hide a tiny
box of unreal gadgets, Villegas, thanks
to the creation of the thirteen stories
included in his book Apócrifa, has done
what some considered unthinkable:
he gave new life to a subject that has
been overexposed since the birth of
literature. He has, also, achieved this
with a mastership that seems desired
by a generation of writers who, it seems,
have forgotten the certainty of the
uncertain for the sake of a technological
postmodernism, at times overwhelming.
Regarding the difficulty that the this
book’s subject merits, namely: the
strange and the unknown; the mysteries
that bind us (without we realizing it
many a time) to each event, no matter
how small or large, that has occurred
throughout history; what’s resulted is
justly compared to a discovery of an
exotic and unexplored land, a new
continent made of letters.
In Apócrifa a handful of aspects that
are not mutually exclusive coexist and
serve each other, forming a new cluster
with the sole purpose of defying the
uncertain. Thus, we find the cosmic in it,
the mystical, the historical, the magical,
the mythological, the wonderful, the
extinct, the imaginary and the scientific
constantly working together to form
some small concentric circles that, once
linked sequentially, produce larger
circles with their diameters rotating
between them till the point of shaping a
distinguishable circularity on the entire
book. A fractal model present in each
story, paragraph and written sentence.
To find the sum of all these elements
so beautifully placed and welded as a
filigree that garnishes and, also, leads
to reflection, is not an everyday event.
About the, presumably, balanced
mixture of imagination and historical
rigor, Mexican writer Alberto Chimal
says that “it contrasts what is true with
what is possible, our hopes and fears
with the direct impression of life.”
Thus, the uncertain isn’t only common
of the realm of death and of whatever
lies beyond our existence, nor is
exclusively a frequent part of darkness
and decadence; the uncertain also
inhabits within all living and breathing
things, within the light and the wake of
each wandering comet. Actually, the
unknown rests a few inches beyond
the limits of what we take for granted.
And no matter how much we expand
our knowledge, there will always be
something unknown to us, something
mystery that make us feel a Paleolithic
fear, one that, as Chimal points out, it
contrasts with all the impressions, direct
or indirect, of life itself.
In the absence of certainty of what the
other really is, we invoke the infinite
possibilities that literature has always
suggested in our minds. The truth that
it doesn’t really matter what we are,
but all of the potentialities that we can
be. Because literature ends that primal
fear by marveling us and making us feel
wonder. It multiplies what we imagine
and makes us expect the unexpected
and long for the uncertain.
Apócrifa explores this myriad of
possibilities. It plays with the uncertain
as a child plays with a cup and ball
toy that has worn out from fulfilling its
mission once, and once again. And
when we think that the trip has come
to an end, Rafael Villegas surprises us
once more, over and over and over. His
success lays in the fact that he doesn’t
reveals what the unknown really is, but
rather forces us to embrace it and make